From Kettle Korn to taking yoga class, from playing the latest Street Fighter incarnation to purchasing the latest Clinique skin care treatments, you can spend every penny to your university creditor's name and still feel academic.
After all, you are on a world-class campus in a world-class city! "But sir," you protest, "UCLA students don't spend their precious campus hours shopping. They spend them parking!"
Touché. But at the prices the school charges to park, I would argue that UCLA parking is a legitimate consumer activity.
Consider how lucky we are to have a fleet of meter maids that raid our coffers with the stealth and efficiency of the modern American war machine. I say that our hearts should be gladdened to finance the police officers that so happily and frequently pull over students struggling to get to the classes they paid for.
That is why I'm all too happy to pay the parking fines and traffic tickets that the UC regents have made sure we never have to do without.
After all, it must be expensive to set up all those administrative telephone systems in such a way that enrolled students don't ever have to speak with boring, breathing, human beings. Why else would there not be enough money for frilly extras like chairs and desks? Someone has to bite the bullet and pay for the maze of request forms and regulations that make the UCLA experience so challenging and exciting!
I must, however, scold the powers that be for not fully realizing UCLA's consumerist possibilities. For example, where is the BruinCoaster? A double looping ride, looming over the main quad, sponsored by the latest summer blockbuster which is conveniently premiering in Westwood Village with tickets at a special price – if you have a Bruin Card.
And why not a giant UCLA casino (dry of course)? Where is the greyhound racing, jai alai and underground boxing circuit that we students deserve? I have heard secret rumblings that such attractions already exist in clandestine and luxuriously appointed caverns below Royce Hall, but only for those whose wallets are open and whose mouths are closed.
Yet even though I dearly miss these essential facilities, it is a pleasure to stroll the campus and experience diverse groups of people, all of them gathering by Ackerman to accost students as we hurry to our classes. I can't help but admire the intractable faith they each have in their own ideology.
One might suspect that these groups, after spending all year within fifty feet of one another, might forget about their distrust and hatred for each other, but in fact their chauvinism remain persistently intact. Bravo!
I for one can understand their desire to court the complacent masses, whose blue and yellow warm-up suits dot the courtyards and commons from Franz to Fowler. Oh look, matching blue and yellow shoes! So proud are we to be Bruins, in our BearWear frocks and socks. All over the Westside, it's hip to be Bear!
And shouldn't it be? After all the class, the friends, the memories and most of all, the money, UCLA should mean a lot to us. However, I'm beginning to feel an ever so slight decline in the selling power of the UCLA brand; has somebody discovered that UCLA might not be the idyllic institution that we keep telling ourselves it is?
No way! That''s why I believe UCLA needs to change its moniker to something with the decadence and chic that the early 21st century is quickly becoming known for. My suggestion: UCLA.thebomb.com. This slight change will increase UCLA's marketability and perceived value in the key market of 16 to 25-year-olds. And we can feel good selling this product to the blessed children and hopeful parents of this sanctified nation. Because UCLA.isthebomb.com is an education that is more than just an alumni bumper sticker; it's a vanity plate too.
this article was written by myself in 2000, edited and printed by the Daily Bruin, and reedited just now by me to be a bit finnier. Any and all parts of this essay not awesome are the faults of the Editors at the Daily Bruin, not your fearless author.
A Big Holiday Sale is going on there now!
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